If you are a foreign teacher in China, in order to guarantee your legal rights in China, you’d better pay attention to the following tips on contracts before sign it.
If you are a foreign teacher in China, in order to guarantee your legal rights in China, you’d better pay attention to the following tips on contracts before sign it.
1. When signing your contracts, be attentive to the following notices:
(1) The original production of the employment contract is requisite while the copy production is invalid. There are six versions of the employment contracts: English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic. The versions using other languages can be replaced by the English version or be translated by the department of employment.
(2) The employment usually involved in a written statement, any verbal agreement is invalid.
(3) Foreign teachers should sign your contracts before coming to China. However, if you are already in China, you should sign the contract before the commencement date.
(4) Considering that the knowledge of foreign teachers’ needs to be updated and they would be able to meet their own life when returned home and get a new job as soon as possible, the foreign teachers’ duration of contracts should not be more than 5 years, and they will be employed at least 2 years later.
(5) It is supposed that there is two month probation period for every foreign teacher. During the two months, your health conditions and your performance in teaching will be evaluated by the department of employment. If you are not competent for the work obligation the contract has stated, you will be fired.
2. When signing the appendix of contracts, be attentive to the following notices:
(1) The standard employment contracts which are made by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs has a unified serial number, so make sure your appendix of contracts is specified with the same number in order to make consistency between the contract and the appendix of contract.
(2) Your tasks should be specified without any unambiguous and the requirement of your work quality should be clearly pointed out.
(3) If there are some other proceedings that you want to know doesn’t included in the contract, you should negotiate with the department of employment and make sure they are listed out clearly in the appendix of contract.
(4) It must be declared that both the contract and the appendix has the same legal effect.
(5) Both you and the represent of the department of employment should sign the appendix of contract in order to make it valid.
3. What should you do if there are some disputes in the contract of employment?
(1) You two parties had better to settle the dispute by friendly consultation.
(2) If the consultation is of no effect, you can submit it to the arbitration body which is established by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs for arbitration in accordance with the arbitration clause of contract.
(3) If you have signed a contract which has no arbitration clause, you two parties should jointly file an arbitration application with the arbitration group or they will not accept your case. You can file a lawsuit with the local people’s court.